Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;662997It seems more plausible after all the other unlikely checks that the whole thing WAS a setup so, I give in and decide that OK, the half-orcs WERE actually plotting the thing all along.

I think that's a very natural reaction, and it's one a lot of referees, by personal inclination or conditioning, are likely to do.

I resist that impulse, for a couple of reasons, First, I build coincidences into my chance encounters right from the giddyup, so there's really not much in the way of an incentive for me to add them on the fly.

Second, I like it when the player come up with explanations for situations, events, and so forth, and I'm fine with them being wildly wrong in their assumptions and presumptions. I don't really care that they 'get to the truth' of something - either they do or they don't, and the don't only really matters if it's something that can bite them in the ass later. The players in my present campaign have drawn a number of incorrect conclusions, but only one of them actually carried consequences for them - so far. The big thing for me is, I don't feel the need to show off what's behind the curtain. Let there be mysteries in the world.

And third?

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;662997The subsequent chain of events effectively re-wrote the 'natural 1' Sense Motive into a really successful Sense Motive, which bothered me despite the PC not knowing a dice was even rolled.

I roll in the open and play the dice where they lie, and this is one of the reasons why.

So I've played in four sessions of our Dungeon World game thus far and this is my first hand observation:  the GM Moves during a combat encounter are immediately related to the action at hand and are not really jarring enough to pull me out of my immersion in the game and action at hand.  That is to say, to my mind, the GM Moves during combat encounters are not really that different than a GM 'narrating' combat in a TRPG that doesn't have very specific combat maneuvers like say AD&D.

Now, outside of combat encounters we've had a couple of GM Moves where the GM and us, the players, sort of pulled back out of the game to discuss the implications and results of the GM Move at hand.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;662997...what I'm not necessarily talking about a shift in the game universe that's actually detectable to the PCs. More a shift from what the GMs notes/what the GM intended.

I can't speak to DW, but I do this sort of thing in my games all the time, and consider it a skill.  If it hasn't happened yet, it's mutable. And if it has happened, but you can think of a plausible path between there and here, that flies too.  If there's no such path, I share what might have been with the player, "that would've been cool, though."  This could be owlbears or NPC motivation, especially when we're not running a module.

Its interesting to see people's responses.
In my example I actually did two bad things, by my lights, which is to say, I rewrote part of the scenario, and effectively ended up fiddling a dice roll in the process. I've met GMs who would consider either or both to be fine.

Even in the OP I was only expecting DW to 'rewrite' reality, not the other thing. Using HyveMynd's suggestions the rewriting is however particularly bad, since the roll results are partly stat dependent; a failed Spout Lore roll here could give owlbears that are actually normal weapon immune, and that result could be actually true (not just believed) and not only wouldn't ever have happened if the PCs had actually gone into the forest without trying to research them, but would also have been directly caused by a low roll modifier i.e. poor INT on the part of rolling character.

At this point it seems though, that the thing I found was just bad DMing advice and not anything intrinsic to Dungeon World, since the GM can interpret moves in a very wide variety of ways.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;663111I roll in the open and play the dice where they lie, and this is one of the reasons why.

Thanks. Interesting blog article. I normally roll in the open too (don't use a DM secret)  - this was a play-by-post game on rpol.net, so I rolled it myself partly since it was a sensory roll the player wouldn't know of unless he succeeded anyway, but mostly because there'd be a lengthy delay (a post to call for the dice roll, then their reply, then a resume the action).

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;662769To me this reads as a strange form of meta-gaming, where the DM is using a poor roll as an excuse to re-write unrelated world details just to fuck the PCs. So is this guy just suggesting some really bad DMing ? Or is this a valid & accepted rules interpretation from AW/DW?

The example appears to be somewhat muddled.

The first mechanic he's spouting is Spout Lore: That's a move that's basically equivalent to a Knowledge check in D&D. Roll 2d6+Int. With an exceptional success you get a piece of information that's relevant and immediately useful. With a minimal success you get a piece of relevant information but you'll need to do some work to make it useful.

In the example, however, the wizard rolls a failure and gets nothing. AFAICT, this mechanical interaction is completely irrelevant to what comes next -- it seems to appear in the example only to establish that the wizard is "safe in town" doing research.

The second mechanic is the GM making a move, specifically Reveal an Unwelcome Truth: "An unwelcome truth is a fact the players wish wasn't true: that the room's been trapped, maybe, or that the helpful goblin is actually a spy. You never make up an unwelcome truth when making this move—you just bring one to light. Reveal to the players just how much trouble they're in."

Emphasis added.

So, long story short, if the guy is making up the unwelcome truths he's listing then he's explicitly not following the rules.

I'm not entirely sure that the original poster is actually suggesting that this stuff is made up on the spot: He's just offering examples of how "bad stuff" can find the players even if they're in a position of seeming safety. (And also pointing out that "bad stuff" doesn't have to be anything as direct or obvious as "bad guys bust down the door and try to kill you".)

On the flip-side, I don't think making shit up that hasn't been previously defined in the game world is a bad thing. If I have no idea how organized or unorganized the Wizard's College library is, for example, and the PCs roll badly on their Research test, then "this place is a complete pit and the closest thing to a card catalog is the book of jokes you found stuck inside a potted plant" might be the sort of thing I'd create on the spot to explain the poor roll (regardless of what system I'm using).

Quote from: Benoist;662796I came up with a lot of things on the spot as a GM over the years, and obviously still do. As a matter of fact, I would think of this faculty to internalize the setting and comprehend it until it becomes an extension of your being to be a critical GMing skill, especially when it comes down to running dynamic, alive settings of your own, like an actual sandbox. Whatever I am coming up with is the extension of my role playing the game world, just like feelings and actions I did not plan for organically come up from role playing a character in the game world, as a Player.

Agree.

A failed Lore check would mean the player gets told Gargoyles can be harmed with Bronze weapons or Vampires can be turned with extreme cold.
It does not change the nature of the creature but the nature of the information imparted about the creature. Certainly in my games where roll are made in the open a failed check usually has the party eye rolling as I describe in great detail how the corridor looks perfectly safe or how the PC recalls a legend of a werewolf being kept at bay by a sprig of thyme.

I see no problem with making stuff up on the run, there will always be unforeseen circumstances, the characters do something you don't expect, a roll is awful or too good. In the end these games are based on chance and chance will always find a way to sneak up on you.

I was playing a game of dnd last week in which the players failed a skill check of 8 against a magical door, this stopped them being able to enter the dungeon in any way, so I quickly had to come up with a new situation in which they could get into the dungeon (by a roving band of Orcs coming back and using the dungeon to store loot) the failed original check I classed as making it so that the Orcs were now aware of the travellers trying to gain entry so set up an ambush.

Earthly Walker

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;662997Just to clarify, 'retconning' is possibly not an accurate word for what I'm trying to describe (I don't think there is a word for it) since what I'm not necessarily talking about a shift in the game universe that's actually detectable to the PCs. More a shift from what the GMs notes/what the GM intended.

I'll try and give an example something from one of my own games, where I was very bad man.

This is a lengthy 3.5/Pathfinder game run on rpol with one player in a sort of megadungeon. His character is a town guardsman who was captured by yuan-ti and turned into a yuan-ti 'tainted one'; and is returning to the nest with a shipment of new human slaves from the surface, along with a pureblood sorceress who is the clans 'recruiter', a goblin scout, a couple of histacii servitors and two half-orc mercenaries.

The slaves are starting to think about escape, so I (secretly, as GM) roll a Sense Motive check for the PC - natural 1. OK, fumble...I decide that he falsely suspects the half-orcs of plotting something. After some time, one of them loudly explains that he is going down a side tunnel to take a shit and the other one goes to accompany him for protection.
The PC decides this is suspicious (player comment - "are they gay or something?") and follows them, in the meantime, I roll a chance of a random encounter - 1 in 6 - get a 1. I roll up what specific creature and get an ogre.

At this point the PC flees back to the wagons crying out ambush. It seems more plausible after all the other unlikely checks that the whole thing WAS a setup so, I give in and decide that OK, the half-orcs WERE actually plotting the thing all along. In the subsequent battle the PC kills both the orcs, while the ogre is webbed and fails to break out repeatedly and gets cut into chunks as well. Fun encounter but...I have a guilt at having revised the world since, up until the PC blew their roll, the half-orcs were essentially trustworthy; at least I hadn't planned a specific betrayal, and it was a sufficiently important detail that its something I should've planned in advance and likely foreshadowed somehow. The subsequent chain of events effectively re-wrote the 'natural 1' Sense Motive into a really successful Sense Motive, which bothered me despite the PC not knowing a dice was even rolled.

Hm. I'd have a problem with that as a player, - I hate this sort of thing as a matter of fact, and I sort of have these invisible magic antennas on top of my head that make me detect the presence of switches like this very fast - and I don't do that as a GM.

My question here would be: what would have been so bad about the players assuming the half-orcs were plotting their escape, the players getting into a fight with them... to find out they were dead wrong all along?

It seems to me this could have played out in different ways, some of which could have been cool also.

First if you didn't want to deal with the consequences of a character believing the half orcs were plotting, you could have come up with something else in the first place. Or use this experience now to not do the same thing again in the future. Now, I know, it very well might have just "popped up" and there, you were in a pickle without realizing it. I get that. It happens (and it's actually not a bad thing when it happens, because IME that's when the craziest, coolest things that no one at the game table had intended have the highest chance of occurring).

Second, after the fumble on the sense motive check, when you rolled for an encounter and got one, you could have held off on the actual exact moment it happened. The players would have confronted the half orcs, maybe getting into a fight with them with them without knowing what was going on. Then something else, the Ogre, would have intervened in the middle of the fight. This could have played in a number of ways: the half-orcs siding with the PCs to fight off the Ogre, the PCs assuming Ogres and half-orcs were in cahoots and making the encounter much more dangerous and in the end pointless for them, the half-orcs fleeing while the PCs took care of the Ogre, then triggering a chase later on or whatnot.

It seems to me this could have unfolded and interacted potentially with other elements of the campaign quite nicely. So the reflex to think this wasn't immediately "cool" and retcon the roll's result to make the thing "dramatically convenient" was a big mistake, IMO, because you basically traded the organic dynamic of the setting for a moment of "cool" that could have just as much happened otherwise.

I agree with Benoist(see I can)

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;662997The slaves are starting to think about escape, so I (secretly, as GM) roll a Sense Motive check for the PC - natural 1. OK, fumble...I decide that he falsely suspects the half-orcs of plotting something. After some time, one of them loudly explains that he is going down a side tunnel to take a shit and the other one goes to accompany him for protection..... Fun encounter but...I have a guilt at having revised the world since, up until the PC blew their roll, the half-orcs were essentially trustworthy; at least I hadn't planned a specific betrayal, and it was a sufficiently important detail that its something I should've planned in advance and likely foreshadowed somehow.

I think this is the crux of the situation.  
I think you should have kept the fumble pertinent to the actual die roll.  
You decided that a sense motive check against the slaves somehow makes him suspect the 1/2orcs.
I have found that crits and fumbles should be explained as the most beneficial or the worst possible outcome.
I.e. the PC is completely bamboozled by the slaves, his attention to detail around them is very lax allowing them to make their attempted escape.

Quote from: Sommerjon;663612I agree with Benoist(see I can)

WOW. That's actually pretty cool to see this. Thank you.

Quote from: Benoist;663582My question here would be: what would have been so bad about the players assuming the half-orcs were plotting their escape, the players getting into a fight with them... to find out they were dead wrong all along?. . . It seems to me this could have unfolded and interacted potentially with other elements of the campaign quite nicely. So the reflex to think this wasn't immediately "cool" and retcon the roll's result to make the thing "dramatically convenient" was a big mistake, IMO, because you basically traded the organic dynamic of the setting for a moment of "cool" that could have just as much happened otherwise.

Worth repeating.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;663648Worth repeating.

Well but really the issue is the GM set up something then later decided at least for that GM's skillset in that moment it wasn't the best option.

Sometimes you drop the dice.

The important thing isn't to go in philosophical spirals about why you dropped the dice or what it does to the game, you just pick them up, keep the game rolling and go "Ok, next time I'll roll the dice on a part of the table where it's less likely to fly off".

When a thing happens and you decide the most fun thing that you as a GM can make happen isn't your plan, the important thing isn't to beat yourself up about it (especially if it's not affecting the short term or long term fun at the table) , but just to, for next time, realize that if you had designed the scenario a litle different, it might've gone smoother and learn from it and make a better scenario next time.

Like: we don't know which way of doing it would've worked better with this GM and these players. We do know something unexpected happened because of a fumble and that maybe if the GM had anticipated it, the GM could've made it even more fun and perhaps maintained more of the integrity of the long term for the players.

The GM should just take that as the takeaway.

Doing a thing that might affect the integrity of the game world or the role of chance in the game isn't usually about eliminating badness from the game it's about maximizing goodness.

And we are all Oskar Schindler, there's always one more thing we could've done to give the players more options, more ideas, more toys, have cause more pleasingly tied to effects, etc etc

Quote from: Benoist;663582Hm. I'd have a problem with that as a player, - I hate this sort of thing as a matter of fact, and I sort of have these invisible magic antennas on top of my head that make me detect the presence of switches like this very fast - and I don't do that as a GM.

My question here would be: what would have been so bad about the players assuming the half-orcs were plotting their escape, the players getting into a fight with them... to find out they were dead wrong all along?

It seems to me this could have played out in different ways, some of which could have been cool also.

First if you didn't want to deal with the consequences of a character believing the half orcs were plotting, you could have come up with something else in the first place. Or use this experience now to not do the same thing again in the future. Now, I know, it very well might have just "popped up" and there, you were in a pickle without realizing it. I get that. It happens (and it's actually not a bad thing when it happens, because IME that's when the craziest, coolest things that no one at the game table had intended have the highest chance of occurring).

Second, after the fumble on the sense motive check, when you rolled for an encounter and got one, you could have held off on the actual exact moment it happened. The players would have confronted the half orcs, maybe getting into a fight with them with them without knowing what was going on. Then something else, the Ogre, would have intervened in the middle of the fight. This could have played in a number of ways: the half-orcs siding with the PCs to fight off the Ogre, the PCs assuming Ogres and half-orcs were in cahoots and making the encounter much more dangerous and in the end pointless for them, the half-orcs fleeing while the PCs took care of the Ogre, then triggering a chase later on or whatnot.

It seems to me this could have unfolded and interacted potentially with other elements of the campaign quite nicely. So the reflex to think this wasn't immediately "cool" and retcon the roll's result to make the thing "dramatically convenient" was a big mistake, IMO, because you basically traded the organic dynamic of the setting for a moment of "cool" that could have just as much happened otherwise.

Yeah, I know I dropped the dice here, and its something that I intend not to do again. Looking back I guess it was for coolness as you say - it just seemed like it would be more exciting. At the time, I didn't think it out enough to realize that if hadn't fiddled with it, it could've been more awesome left as-is. Mea culpa.